What Is to Be Done?

And now therefore, since every intelligent reader of the Bible knows that Catholicism and the Protestant sects are not the church of God; that every sect corporation yokes together saints and sinners, which the Bible forbids; since the most bigoted confess that “the church [meaning the sect] will not save anybody”; and since Christ alone can save and keep us, and we are “complete in him”* (Colossians 2:10)—why not abandon the sect and abide only in Christ, and His body the church? Since there will be no sects in heaven, why cling to them on earth? Why insult the wisdom of Christ by the imputation that the church He founded is not practical, and some man has in these last days gotten up a better one, which you prefer?

In the name of Jesus Christ, whose Word will soon judge us, we beseech all men to escape from all sin and sinners, from all sect clans, and sectish bands, and take refuge in Jesus Christ, and His own church, which is “the pillar and ground of the truth.”* (1 Timothy 3:15) Amen.